


But I Know Where I Am

by nagi_schwarz



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 15:20:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6475513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney buys a stolen car, is pulled over by a hot cop, and it's all downhill from there. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But I Know Where I Am

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brumeier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/gifts).



> Happy Birthday, [](http://brumeier.livejournal.com/profile)[brumeier](http://brumeier.livejournal.com/)! This story was inspired by a prompt fill she did on the [](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[comment_fic](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/) meme in which Rodney was pulled over by an attractive police officer. Apologies for terrible nerd jokes.
> 
> Thanks to Roundtressym for the beta :) All other mistakes are mine.

The worst thing about being a professor at a junior college was the pay. Hands down. Rodney had ample experience dealing with idiots, whether they were fellow researchers, grad students, or the dunderhead undergrads he’d been corralled into teaching until something better came along. So when his precious, sweet little hybrid car died, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He had a lousy job. He was living in a lousy apartment. His last relationship had gone horribly sideways (who knew anyone could have a bigger ego than Rodney McKay?). And his car was dead. Rather than be reduced to living with Jeannie and her husband and little girl and suffer through endless nights of tofu because he’d bought a new car, he bit the bullet and bought an absolute clunker off of Craigslist. He figured he could use his own considerable engineering skills to fix the thing in his spare time (it wasn’t like he had a social life or hobbies), so he drove it away from the lot, hoping the baling wire and duct tape would hold together long enough for him to get it to work, then straight home.

When he saw the flashing lights in the rear view mirror, he knew his humiliation was complete. He pulled over with a sigh.

“Remember,” he told himself, “be polite.” He could do polite, contrary to popular opinion. He squinted in the rear view mirror as the police cruiser pulled onto the shoulder behind him. Just his luck, it would be some grouchy old veteran who could probably sense, a mile away, that he was bi, and would hate him on principle.

No. Worse. It was an incredibly attractive man. Tall, lean, with messy dark hair, dark aviator shades, and a serious turn to his very pretty mouth. He had muscular forearms and a distinctive stride and oh no, Rodney had never been able to be coherent around attractive men. He rolled down his window and fumbled for his wallet and the temporary registration the seller had given him and his insurance card.

It was just like the movies. The police officer leaned over, and Rodney could see the hint of a white undershirt where his uniform shirt gaped, could see the hollow of his throat where it would be perfect to lick, and –

“Do you know how fast you were going?” The police officer raised his eyebrows.

 _Don’t do it don’t do it_. Rodney’s palms were sweating, his heart pounding. He blurted out, “No, but I know where I am.”

 _No, not the Heisenberg joke!_ his conscience wailed. His conscience sounded an awful lot like his sister Jeannie.

The police officer – J. Sheppard, his name tag read – burst out laughing. Doubled over and laughed so hard his sunglasses fell off. He had a ridiculous braying laugh, but his entire face lit up, and he looked utterly delighted, and Rodney wished he had a camera. He also wished the ground would open and swallow him, car and all.

Officer Sheppard caught himself against the door of the car, gasping for air. His laughter subsided into little giggling hiccups, and he leaned down to pick up his sunglasses, which he tucked into the neck of his shirt absently, like he did it all the time.

He had bright gray-hazel eyes, which crinkled at the corners when he smiled. “That was a pretty good one,” he said, once he had his breath back. “Never had anyone try that one before.”

“I’m sorry,” Rodney said, cautiously optimistic. Making the hot cop laugh had to bode well for him, right? “I say the craziest things when I’m nervous.”

“I can see that. License and registration?” Officer Sheppard held out one hand.

Rodney handed them over. “I just bought this car, so everything’s all temporary for now. Except for my license, of course.”

Officer Sheppard scanned his driver’s license, raised his eyebrows. “Meredith?”

“It’s a perfectly masculine name. Means ‘lord of the sea’,” Rodney snapped, and then winced, because making the cop angry was always a bad idea. “I prefer Rodney,” he added, more meekly.

“Okay, Rodney,” Officer Sheppard said, amused and thankfully not angry, “you wait here while I go run these.”

“Yes, officer.” Rodney might have watched Officer Sheppard’s return to his cruiser a little more closely than was appropriate, but the man looked just as good from behind as he did from the front. He wasn’t too worried about what Officer Sheppard would find when he typed into the laptop affixed to the dash of the cruiser. Rodney was generally a very careful, law-abiding driver. He hadn’t had a ticket in years.

In America.

Damn Jeannie for leaving the safety of Canada.

Rodney was highly alarmed when Officer Sheppard, instead of returning quickly, got onto his radio and chatted back and forth for what seemed like a very long time. Rodney checked his watch. There was still ninety minutes till he had to teach his next lecture. Plenty of time to deal with this ticket and get back to the college. Officer Sheppard slid out of the car, one long, lean, glorious, sinuous slide, and Rodney’s heartbeat stuttered. There was tension in Officer Sheppard’s stride now. Anger?

When he leaned in at the driver’s side window, he said, “Are you aware this car is stolen?”

“Stolen?” Rodney squawked. “No! I just bought it! I’m out eight hundred bucks for this beater!”

Officer Sheppard lifted his chin. “I’m going to need you to step out of the car.”

Rodney blinked. Officer Sheppard stepped back and beckoned. Rodney would have killed for just that gesture in pretty much any other scenario than this (or a fist-fight; Rodney was a lover, not a fighter). Rodney obeyed, hands shaking.

“Place your hands on the hood of the car,” Officer Sheppard said, and this could have been sexy, but it really wasn’t. Rodney hesitated, heart pounding.

“Mr. McKay,” Officer Sheppard began, and then the radio at his shoulder crackled to life. He reached up and pressed a button on it. “Go for Sheppard.” Whoever was on the other end spoke in a series of unintelligible code words, letters, numbers, and a whole lot of static. “Acknowledged,” Officer Sheppard said at the end of it, and lifted his head. “Apologies, Mr. McKay. It’s your lucky day. They caught the thief, and he confessed to selling this car on to you. Now I don’t have to take you downtown.”

Relief flooded Rodney’s limbs. “So I can go?”

“Unfortunately, this car is evidence. We’ll have to impound it.”

“But I have to get to work,” Rodney protested. “And what about the money I paid for the car?”

“The money will be recovered if it’s possible,” Officer Sheppard said. “Can you call someone for a ride?”

Apart from Jeannie, who was on vacation with her husband and child celebrating the release of said husband’s new book, and Jennifer, who was in the middle of her shift at the hospital, Rodney didn’t really know anyone in town. It must have shown on his face, because Officer Sheppard said,

  
“If you can wait till the impound crew gets here, I can give you a lift. It’s not your fault you got lied to and cheated.” Officer Sheppard’s expression was sympathetic. “Where do you work?”

“At the college. I teach physics and engineering.”

“I’d have guessed chemistry,” Officer Sheppard said.

“Why?”

“From the Heisenberg joke.”

“Right.” Officer Sheppard had laughed at it. Obviously he understood it. Rodney smiled weakly.

It took twenty minutes for the impound crew to arrive, during which time Officer Sheppard retreated to his cruiser and Rodney made sure he had everything he needed from the car: cell phone, wallet, keys – except the car key – and the leather satchel in which he kept his iPad and his travel coffee mug. Once Rodney had handed his car key over to the impound crew, Officer Sheppard waved Rodney into his cruiser.

“Sit up front,” Officer Sheppard said, “so neither of us have to feel like I’m transporting a suspect.”

Rodney obeyed, clutching his satchel on his lap like a shield.

The ride was quiet, punctuated only by the occasional burst of chatter from the radio. Officer Sheppard knew the way to campus but needed Rodney to direct him to the appropriate parking lot. Rodney climbed out, still clutching his satchel close, and started for the doors of the science building.

“Rodney,” Officer Sheppard called after him.

Rodney paused, turned.

Officer Sheppard beckoned. It was Rodney’s turn to lean in to the driver’s side window.

Officer Sheppard held out a business card. “Keep in touch. About the stolen car.”

“I will. Thanks, officer.” Rodney had to juggle a few things before he could accept the card and tuck it into a pocket. It was generic, for the police department as a whole, not Officer Sheppard in particular.

“And remember – go easy on the speed.” Officer Sheppard flashed him a grin, and then he pulled away from the parking lot.

“Hey, Dr. McKay,” a girl said.

Rodney turned. Sighed. It was Ellia, one of Jeannie’s neighbor’s daughters. Jeannie had assigned various students on campus she knew to look out for Rodney.

“You’re not in trouble, are you?” Ellia asked.

“No,” Rodney said, “he was just giving me a ride.”

Ellia raised her eyebrows. “Oh! You have a hot cop for a boyfriend, then?”

“That’s none of your business,” Rodney said firmly. “Now come on. Or do you want to be late to my lecture?”

Apparently Ellia thought it was her business, because after class, a couple of students asked questions about the homework, but all of Ellia’s friends from Jeannie’s neighborhood asked about his new hot cop boyfriend. Rodney, too tired after the stress of the morning and disgruntled by the fact that now he’d have to walk home, refused to answer them.

In retrospect, he should have, because Jeannie called to give him an earful for not telling her he’d started seeing someone so she could stop trying to set him up. Rodney contemplated telling her the truth for two seconds, but if the truth meant she’d keep setting him up on blind dates with every gay man she stumbled across, regardless of whether he and Rodney had anything in common, he’d let her continue to believe the stupid lie.

Whenever the students or Jeannie asked about his hot cop boyfriend, he insisted he could neither confirm nor deny, which wasn’t really telling the truth or lying, and Jeannie stopped telling him about the gay men she happened to meet during her day (and somehow she met an awful lot of them).

Officer Sheppard had been really, really attractive, though. He hit all the right notes for Rodney - bright eyes, lean forearms, smirky smile, the way he’d laughed at Rodney’s admittedly terrible Heisenberg joke. And the way he’d looked as he’d walked away. So if Rodney called the police station several times to inquire about his car, well, his car was important, and if he just happened to speak to Officer Sheppard about it, that was nice of the universe.

Unfortunately, it was Officer Emmagan, a woman, who got back to him. She was polite and had a soothing voice, but she wasn’t Officer Sheppard, his imaginary hot cop boyfriend who could, maybe, become Rodney’s real boyfriend if Rodney could actually talk to him again and ask him out on a date (if he was that brave, which, okay, he really wasn’t). Rodney perked up a little when Officer Emmagan asked him to come down to the station to fill out a report about the man he’d bought his car from and how much he had paid.

If he spent a little too long agonizing over what outfit to wear down to the police station, no one knew but him.

It was a stone-faced older man named Sumner who took his statement. He was precisely the kind of man Rodney had been afraid would get out of the patrol car when Officer Sheppard first pulled him over. Even though Rodney was a victim, he felt an awful lot like a suspect while Detective Sumner grilled him. Rodney was careful to only answer the questions as asked, but he could still sense Sumner getting irritated with him when he was a little too verbose.

“Mr. McKay, I don’t care what the man smelled like. The jury isn’t going to sniff him. A description of his clothes is sufficient.”

“He was distinctly malodorous,” Rodney said, “and smell is a better memory trigger than sight is.”

Sumner’s jaw tightened. “Moving on. What was he wearing?”

Rodney wished that Officer Emmagan was interviewing him instead. If he didn’t get to see Officer Sheppard again, well, Emmagan seemed like a nice person. Rodney left the police station feeling even more like a suspect than a victim and with little assurance that he’d ever see the money he’d been cheated out of for the stolen car.

He called the police station every day for a week and spoke to someone different - Officer Ford, Sergeant Lorne, Officer Dex, Detective O’Neill, Sergeant Harriman - and heard nothing about his car, and finally he decided he was just out of luck, the universe hated him, and he bought a bike and looked like a too-old student, riding around campus on the thing. He was out money he really needed, and he’d never get to see Officer Sheppard again, and life sucked.

The only small compensation the universe offered in return was that Ellia and her friends had stopped asking him about his hot cop boyfriend.

Rodney was at the coffee shop in the student union grading pop quizzes (he wasn’t avoiding office hours so much as avoiding his office-mates, because if he had to cover one of Zelenka’s classes again he’d scream) when a shadow fell over the stack of much sweated-over sheets of paper.

“Got room for one more?”

Rodney looked up so fast he almost gave himself whiplash. Officer Sheppard was standing over him, only he wasn’t wearing his delicious black uniform. No, he was wearing jeans and a soft grey sweater, and he was smiling.

“Sure, Officer Sheppard.”

“It’s John, actually. And hopefully, after today, it’ll be Detective Sheppard.” He sat down in the chair opposite Rodney, holding a cup of coffee. He tugged off the lid carefully and pursed his lips, blew across the surface of the hot coffee to cool it.

Rodney was riveted by the way his mouth looked.

“So,” John said, and Rodney was forced to look him in the eye and stop being such a creeper, “how is teaching going?”

“As good as it can.” Rodney gestured to one of the quizzes, which was practically bleeding red ink.

“I bet you’re like Professor Snape.” John grinned at him over the rim of his coffee cup and took a sip.

Rodney lifted his chin. “I prefer to think of myself more as a McGonagall, firm but fair.”

John looked delighted that Rodney understood his allusion and rolled with it. Rodney had never thought he’d be grateful for his niece’s Harry Potter obsession.

John sipped cautiously at his coffee. “How are the future physicists of America?”

“I wouldn’t trust them to warm a seat,” Rodney said.

John winced. “So I need to stay off the road, basically?”

“More like stay off the planet.”

“I’ll be sure to check in with NASA, then.”

Rodney glanced around the coffee shop and saw that it was crowded. He was hoping John was flirting with him, because there was a glint in John’s eye that was amused and something else, but there was every chance John had just sat with him because there had been no other space, and he hadn’t wanted to sit with any students.

More than one student was casting interested looks John’s way.

“So, Detective Sheppard?”

“Detective exam was on campus here today. If I pass, I’m done with the uniform, and done with smart alecks who make Heisenberg jokes in the middle of very serious police business.” John smiled to soften his sarcasm.

“How long have you been with the force?” John looked like he was about the same age as Rodney, maybe a couple of years younger.

“Five years. I was in the Air Force before that.”

“One of those...what do they call them...zoomies?”

“No. Chopper pilot. Nothing as glamorous as all that Top Gun stuff.” But there was something shadowed in John’s eyes that belied the amusement in his grin. “How long have you been teaching?”

“Not long. I was in research before, but my sister lives down here, and I wanted to be closer to her and her family, so here I am.” Also, he’d wanted to be far away from the disaster that had been the massive blow-up between him and Tunney at the lab, but that was neither here nor there. After Tunney almost blew up half of Canada trying to implement his crazy theories, they’d come crawling back to Rodney. Till then, though, he did need to eat.

“That’s nice. I have a couple of nieces myself. My brother moved out here after he and his wife divorced.” John sipped his coffee some more and sighed. “I wish we had coffee like this back at the station. People would be in better moods if we had better coffee. Speaking of - did you ever hear about your car?”

“No,” Rodney grumbled. “Every time I called I spoke to someone different. After Sumner interrogated me, I heard basically nothing.”

John winced. “Internal politics. Sumner’s not there anymore. I’m guessing they didn’t handle the re-assignment of his case very well. I can check on it, if you like.”

“I’d really like that,” Rodney said, and warmth unfurled in his chest. He was about to casually segue into asking John out for coffee, since John was being so nice as to check into the car case for him, and then a girl said,

“Dr. McKay, I have a question about today’s quiz.”

Rodney and John both turned. Ellia was standing beside the table, hands clasped behind her back, looking like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. She - and every student in Rodney’s class - knew he didn’t answer questions about quizzes until he graded them and returned them.

John raised his eyebrows. “I’d better get back to the station. Thanks for taking a coffee break with me.” He stood up.

“Any time,” Rodney said, and he meant it fervently. He wanted to ask for John’s phone number, but with Ellia standing right there, that was impossible, because she thought he and John were already dating.

“Oh, no, don’t leave on my account,” Ellia said, and if Rodney could fail her for being annoying, he would.

“I really hate to distract,” John said. “I know Rodney takes his teaching very seriously.”

Rodney’s pulse stuttered. John remembered his name. John waved, and Rodney waved, and then John walked away. Rodney watched him go wistfully and really wished he could strangle Ellia.

“So that’s what he looks like outside of uniform.” Ellia smirked at him.

Well, two could play this game.

Rodney gestured to the recently vacated seat opposite him. “Please, have a seat. And let’s talk about your quiz.”

Later that night, he received a spirited phone call from Jeannie asking when he’d bring his boyfriend around to meet the family ( _Meredith, are you ashamed of us?_ ) and also telling him off for making Ellia terrified of physics. Rodney avoided the questions by asking Jeannie about her husband’s newest book and how Madison was doing in kindergarten. Half an hour later, the phone call ended and Jeannie was so pleased Rodney was caring more about other people’s lives. And then he got an angry text message ( _Don’t think I didn’t notice what you were doing! You can’t avoid the issue forever!_ ).

Rodney wished that one day he’d be able to bring John to meet his family and introduce him as a boyfriend, but the universe didn’t like him that much. Instead the universe gave him two weeks of rain, forcing him to ride his bicycle to school under the dubious protection of a hooded plastic mac and show up to class soaked from the knees down, and a letter from Officer Ford letting him know the police were still investigating his case, the matter was being prosecuted, and he might be a witness, but he had no hope of recovering any of the money he’d lost until the car thief had been sentenced and restitution calculated.

Rodney was pretty sure that he’d never see his money - or John Sheppard - again.

Jeannie kept hounding him about going out on a double date or something.

So naturally the person who called and asked him on a double date was his ex-girlfriend, Jennifer Keller. She was going out to dinner with some rich guy she’d met a fundraiser back in Virginia.

“Please, Rodney,” she said. “I really, really like this guy, and he says his brother is bi. It’ll be fun. If his brother is even half as good-looking as he is, you will be singing my praises forever.”

Rodney stared at his phone as if it had betrayed him. But hey, he could go on this date, and the next time Jeannie asked if he was still seeing John, he could honestly say he was seeing other people. “Jennifer -”

“You owe me. After all those horrible physics conventions you took me to, you owe me.”

“Fine. When and where and what do I need to wear?”

“Let me pick your outfit,” Jennifer began, and Rodney sighed. Jennifer was a brilliant doctor, a kind woman, but they’d broken up for a reason.

“Fine,” he said.

“Great. See you tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow night?”

But Jennifer had already hung up.

Jennifer was punctual, so Rodney opened the door at precisely five-thirty before she could knock.

“Rodney!” she cried. She didn’t look happy to see him - or to pick out his outfit, which she’d always enjoyed doing when they dated. She punched him in the shoulder. “You didn’t tell me you’re already seeing somebody.”

Rodney blinked at her. “What?”

Jennifer waved her phone. “Jeannie said you have a boyfriend. Some hot police officer? Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have gotten someone else to double with.”

“Oh. Right. My hot cop boyfriend.” Rodney rolled his eyes. “I don’t actually have a boyfriend,” he said. “C’mon in.”

“Then why does Jeannie think you do?”

“Because a very attractive police officer gave me a ride to campus one time after my car had to be impounded as evidence in a car theft case, and everyone made assumptions, and I just let them keep making them.” Rodney led Jennifer into his bedroom, which he might have cleaned a little extra, and opened the closet so she could examine its contents.

“Why would you do that?”

“So Jeannie would stop setting me up with every gay man she meets. She somehow seems to think that shared sexuality will make up for any deficiencies in personality or brain power.”

Jennifer began rifling through his button-down shirts. “Jeannie’s at least as smart as you. Surely she -”

“Wouldn’t set me up with a hairdresser who practically belched rainbows, he was so gay? Also Jeannie forgets I’m bi.” Rodney shook his head at the burnt orange shirt she held up. He’d been meaning to get rid of it.

Jennifer looked at it again, wrinkled her nose, stripped it off the hanger, and tossed it aside. She’d always had a good eye for color. “She seems to think that since you and I didn’t work out, you should try a man.”

Rodney narrowed his eyes at her. “Is that why you asked me to be your double date?”

“No,” Jennifer said absently, fingering a dark gray shirt.

Rodney believed her.

“I really like this guy, and you super owe me.” She handed him the shirt. “This one. With this suit.”

Rodney nodded and went into the bathroom to change. He didn’t close the door all the way so they could continue to talk to her. “Tell me about this date of yours.”

“His name is Dave,” she said. “He’s the CEO of a big utilities corporation, and he’s really into green energy. We met at the annual Doctors Without Borders fundraiser back in Virginia.”

He sounded like the perfect man for Jennifer - intelligent, ambitious, but sharing her idealism about the world. “And you two hit it off?”

“Yes. It was sheer coincidence, both of us living in the same relatively small town and never having run into each other - not that we really frequent the same places. He travels for work a lot, and I’m at the hospital all the time. I guess it’s good I never saw him at the ER.” Jennifer looked Rodney up and down when he stepped out of the bathroom to model the outfit she’d chosen. She nodded, then turned back to the closet to pick a tie. “He was nice, though. Funny. Charming. Asked me to dinner.”

“Don’t you think a double date will be awkward for a first date?” Rodney asked.

“It’s our second date, actually.” Jennifer smiled to herself, a little goofily. Rodney remembered when she’d smiled like that about him. The fact that he’d never smiled that way about her should have been a sign they weren’t meant to be much earlier on than it was. “We went out the night after the fundraiser.”

“I see. What do you know about his brother?”

“Younger, by a few years, I think maybe your age? He was a math major in college. Got his masters in something to do with Sandman’s theorem? Or something like it.” Jennifer held up several ties, considering them.

Rodney raised his eyebrows. “You mean Sundman’s Theorem? Related to the Three Body Problem?”

“I don’t know that Dave really understood it, so he didn’t explain it to me well.” Jennifer shrugged. “He said his brother likes Ferris Wheels, surfing, and fast cars. They grew up in Virginia, so I guess he spent time at Virginia beach learning to surf?”

Rodney wasn’t much for speedy anything. He went to the gym regularly, because a healthy body helped maintain a healthy mind, but he wasn’t a thrillseeker. Still, someone who’d tackled Sundman’s Theorem - tried to make it more streamlined, most likely, that was the best thing to do with it - had to be brilliant.

“What does his brother do for a living?” If Rodney didn’t get the guy with the badge and the gun and the bright eyes, he’d take the brilliant, attractive mathematician.

“Dave didn’t say, now that you mention it. Now come on - we don’t want to be late.”

They were taking Jennifer’s car, because Rodney had no car, and also she knew where they were going. Belatedly, Rodney remembered to compliment her on how pretty her dress was (white, simple, lacy with eyelets along the neckline and hem) and mention that her hair looked nice.

She rolled her eyes but smiled patiently at him. “Thanks, Rodney. Now come on, try to have fun! It’ll be great, I swear. Dave’s really funny and charming and a good conversationalist, and I’m sure his brother will be just as fun to be around.”

Rodney hoped so.

When Jennifer pulled up outside of a very expensive restaurant, Rodney winced.

“Don’t worry,” Jennifer said, “Dave’s paying.” She parked, and Rodney remembered to hold the door open for her as they went into the restaurant. It was softly lit, and everywhere Rodney could see fine china, crystalware and real silverware, fine linen and exquisitely displayed tiny portions of food. Soft harp music was playing from somewhere. The woman at the hostess lectern looked like she’d stepped off a Paris runway, towering over both Rodney and Jennifer in designer heels.

“Reservation for Dave Sheppard,” Jennifer said, and Rodney’s heart skipped a beat, because whenever he heard the name _Sheppard_ he inevitably thought of John, but it was actually a very common name. He’d know. He’d checked the local white pages for J. Sheppard. There was a lot of them.

The hostess inclined her head politely. “Your party is already waiting for you. This way, please.” She led Rodney and Jennifer past the main dining room to private dining room in the back.

Inside was a single table, set for four. Both men already seated there rose up smoothly. Dave Sheppard was tall, square-jawed, blue-eyed, and GQ handsome.

“Jennifer,” he said, and he actually took her hand and kissed it, “so good to see you again. This is my brother -”

“John?” Rodney came up short, startled.

The man beside Dave was John Sheppard, wearing a dark suit and a white button-down shirt open at the collar and looking unfairly handsome.

“Rodney,” John said, and a smile spread across his face.

Dave raised his eyebrows. “You two know each other?”

“We met through work,” John said.

Dave’s eyebrows went higher, and John said quickly, “He’s not a criminal. Some guy sold him a stolen car.”

Rodney was immensely grateful John didn’t mention the whole speeding thing. “And we had coffee on campus after John got done taking the detective exam. Speaking of which - is it Detective Sheppard now?”

“It is.” John grinned, and Rodney’s pulse stuttered.

Jennifer leaned in to Rodney and whispered, “Let me guess, hot cop boyfriend?”

“Right in one.”

“Please, have a seat,” Dave said.

Rodney settled into the chair opposite John, laid the fine linen napkin on his lap. “So, John, Jennifer tells me you got your masters in mathematics.”

“Yes, while I was with the Air Force,” John said. “Dave tells me you teach physics.” He smirked, amused, because the small talk was half a farce, given that they’d interacted twice before. “It’s a small world, isn’t it?”

“Indeed it is.” Rodney fought down the urge to do a happy dance in his seat. Finally, the universe had stopped hating him. He was on a date with John Sheppard. It was literally a dream come true. “Although you might want to still think about calling NASA. During lab last week, one of my students almost took out the entire science building.”

“How so?” John asked, and Rodney launched into the tale.

Dinner went well. Conversation flowed freely, there was laughter and good food (even though the portions were ridiculously tiny), and there were no awkward silences. After dinner, they went to walk in the park across the street. The sun was just setting, and there was a gazebo strung with fairy lights where a string quartet was playing. Jennifer and Dave wandered over there and danced a little. Rodney and John strolled along one of the paths, watching a couple play fetch with a pair of rambunctious dogs.

“So, what are the chances?” John asked. “That we’d be each other’s blind dates?”

“You’re more of a mathematician than I am,” Rodney said.

“Pretty small,” John decided. “I’m glad it was you, though. I talked to Teyla, and she said Lorne’s taken your case, so it should see some definite forward motion. I would have offered to take it, because then I’d have an excuse to see you again, but then there would also be a conflict of interest.”

Rodney frowned. “Conflict of interest? Why?”

“Because I like you, and I want to date you,” John said. “Can’t be dating a potential witness in a case, you know.”

“Really? You want to date me?”

“You’re smart and funny and you have an incredible smile and amazing blue eyes,” John said. “Of course I want to date you.”

“Really?”

“Has no one ever told you that before?”

“Not in such specific terms, no.”

John shook his head. “That’s a shame.”

“I want to date you, too,” Rodney said. “I couldn’t think of a good excuse to go to the police station and look for you after I got that letter about my case, short of committing a crime -”

“Bad idea,” John said firmly.

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Obviously. So I just figured the universe hated me and I’d never get to see you again.”

“I guess the universe likes you at least as much as I do.” John glanced at him sidelong.

Rodney glanced over his shoulder. The music from the gazebo was almost inaudible, and its glow had faded to the size of a candle flame in the distance. They were alone, or as good as, what with the woman chasing her frisbee-stealing dog in the background.

“I have a confession to make,” Rodney said.

The corner of John’s mouth curved up. “You used to date Jennifer? I know that.”

“Ah, not that. I mean, that’s true, but that wasn’t what I meant.”

“What did you mean, then?”

“Obviously I would have told you,” Rodney began.

“Spit it out, McKay.”

“I - most of my students and my friends think you’re already my boyfriend,” Rodney said.

John turned to face him fully. “What?”

“My students saw you drop me off at school that day and made assumptions, and I was too grumpy to answer their questions, and one of them told my sister, and I was going to tell her the truth, I really was, but she finally stopped setting me up with weirdoes, and -”

“Weirdoes?”

Rodney nodded fervently. “Yes. Like the yoga instructor who was a fruitarian and believed that the entire field of physics was a conspiracy perpetrated by white imperialists to subjugate sub-saharan Africa.”

John snickered. “Really?”

“Yes. And he wasn’t even the worst. I figured I’d string her along for a while, then say we broke up, and I needed to find myself again before I tried dating any more, and I’d be scot free for at least six months, but then we had coffee together and my student saw us and she ran and told my sister -”

“Why are your students telling your sister things about you?”

“Ellia is one of my sister’s neighbors. My sister wanted people to look out for me. Like I’m not a functioning adult.” Rodney rolled his eyes. “And then the whole tizzy about my fictional hot cop boyfriend started to gain momentum -”

“Hot cop boyfriend?” John bit his lip to hold back a smile.

“I didn’t pick the name,” Rodney said. “It’s a reasonable name, though.”

“You think I’m hot?”

“So do half of my students. Maybe two thirds. The point is, when you do finally meet my family, they’re going to think we’ve been dating for the past month and a half.”

“And do you want them to think that?” John asked.

“I don’t know. On the one hand, Jeannie will probably try to brain me with a cast-iron frying pan if she finds out I lied to her. On the other hand, we sort of had a coffee date that one time, so we were kind of dating? That was the closest to a date I’d been on in a long time.”

John hummed thoughtfully. “I see your point. Very lawyerly of you.”

“Let’s not get insulting now.”

“If we’ve already been on a date, possibly two if you count us taking a drive that first day -”

“Now who’s being lawyerly?”

“- So it’s totally legit and not at all forward for me to do this.” John stepped closer to Rodney, and Rodney’s breath hitched.

“Are you going to kiss me?”

“Only if you want me to.”

“I want.”

“Good.” John leaned down, and Rodney closed his eyes.

The kiss was warm and sweet, John’s lips soft, his arms around Rodney strong and gentle. Rodney hummed happily into the kiss, and John pulled back, chuckled against his mouth.

“Go out with me again?” John asked.

Rodney nodded. “Absolutely.”

**Author's Note:**

> The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in a nutshell is that you can know either the location or the speed of a particle but not both at the same time. (The uncertainty decreases the larger the particle is.) The joke goes as follows: Heisenberg was speeding along the freeway, and a cop pulled him over. "Sir," said the cop, "do you know how fast you were going?" "No," said Heisenberg, "but I know where I am."


End file.
